Talk of the Town: Fresh from the pan

OF all the gifts the Lord Provost has received, a cake in the shape of a toilet is surely one of the most loo-dicrous.

Civic leader George Grubb was presented with the sponge WC during a reception to celebrate 100 years of the Edinburgh Plumbers’ Guild last week.

As part of the celebration a centenary gateaux in the shape of of a lavvy was cut by plumbing chief Robin Hall and Mr Grubb at the City Chambers.

It is not known what flavour the toilet cake was.

Sea food and eat it

STILL on a culinary theme and a new ingredient is to be showcased by two creative Edinburgh chefs – seaweed gathered at the full moon.

Chefs Paul Wedgwood and Mark Greenaway will showcase their seaweed seasonings at the Edinburgh New Town Cookery School today. All the sea seasonings are hand-harvested green, red, and brown seaweeds from pristine Celtic waters.

The seaweed is gathered when the tides are lowest – either at a new or a full Moon – then dried and milled within 24 hours of picking and sealed in foil pouches to preserve the flavour. We’re sure die-hard foodies will algae it a try.

No-one here gets off alive

WORD reaches Talk of the Town of a Mexican stand-off on an express bus service that has become a victim of its own success.

When too many passengers paid on to the First Bus X44 at Tranent, those who were standing were told they had to get off as it was illegal to have standing commuters on board the “bus”, which would be more accurately be described as a coach. The problem sparked a set-to which lasted a good 15 minutes, before the standing passengers finally admitted defeat and got off the coach.

Rowling sees red

IT’S never easy to be a ginger and it seems even one of the most famous redheads can suffer a little discrimination.

The character of Ron Weasely gave carrot-tops everywhere hope that they too could aspire to be the less-talented best friend of a hero. Fortunately they never knew just how close Ron came to getting the chop.

In an interview with Daniel Radcliffe for the forthcoming DVD release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, Rowling admitted: “I planned from the start that none of them would die. Then midway through, which I think is a reflection of the fact that I wasn’t in a very happy place, I started thinking I might polish one of them off. Out of sheer spite. I did seriously consider killing Ron.”